Why are we rushing to defend Ukraine? [merged threads]

[Boiler 45,735]

It is not so much the airframes but the systems that can be attached to them.

[Dashinka 24,639]

13 hours ago, Mike E said:

I am convinced that Ukraine is winning the kill ratio.
 

The Ukrainian commanders have better Western arms, and they are in the same position as Bill Slim who commanded the allied efforts in Burma in WW2: they know they are not going to have troops replaced as fast as the enemy.
 

Slim managed

a 100 to 1 kill ratio.

 

Ukraine is still at 2-3 to 1, but it will get there, since it has an greater technological advantage than Slim had.

 

 

 

How would we know the kill ratio considering the corrupt leadership on both sides?  The news from the Ukraine and from Russia is simply propaganda when it deals with casualties numbers.  I did find this interesting story (below), not sure how true it is, but if even partially true, gives an indication.  There are similar stories and rumors occurring in Russia as well.  I know the West, particularly the neoCons and elite DC insiders are playing this all about a land grab, or the reformation of the USSR strategy, but it really seems this is more like the split up of the former Yugoslavia.  As similar as Ukrainians and Russians are, there are deep divisions which has lead to tensions ever since WWII.  When the USSR broke up, Ukraine really should have been split into at least two separate countries to help alleviate the tensions, but alas, the best laid plans...  In the end, there will be two countries with a lot of dead young men which is sad really when it is to simply appease a bunch of corrupt elite leaders on all sides.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rumours-of-a-general-mobilisation-swirl-in-ukraine-as-casualty-figure-mounts/ar-AA1fY79X

[Dashinka 24,639]

Appropriate here.  Mr. Sempa is right, most of the failures of the US military strategy over the past 40 years is from the neocons and their ilk.  This includes what is happening now with Ukraine and Russia.  Sure the West is giving Ukraine a bunch of advanced weapons, but didn't they do the same in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.? 

 

Last Gasp of the Neoconservatives

 

Fortunately, neoconservatives are a dying breed in American politics. At least in the Republican Party. Having achieved relevance in the latter stages of the Cold War by breaking with the Democratic Party (where most of them came from) and supporting President Ronald Reagan’s policies that won the Cold War, the neoconservatives spent much of the post-Cold War world finding new “monsters to destroy” (to use the famous phrase of John Quincy Adams). They first picked Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But after the U.S. military achieved a quick victory on the battlefield in 1991 and forced Iraqi forces to leave Kuwait, the neoconservatives criticized the Bush 41 administration for not toppling the Iraqi regime. During the Clinton administration, the neocons were ardent champions of U.S. intervention in the Balkans. Then, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the neoconservatives persuaded the George W. Bush administration not only to retaliate against our enemies in Afghanistan but to declare a “Global War on Terror” and launch a crusade to democratize the Arab regimes of the Middle East. Bush 43, backed by the neoconservatives and using Wilsonian rhetoric, preemptively attacked Iraq, overthrew the heinous Hussein regime, declared “victory,” and then needlessly expended the lives of American soldiers and American treasure in failed efforts to remake the Middle East in America’s image.

 

Last year Jeffrey Sachs wrote that Ukraine is “the latest neocon disaster.” He described the war in Ukraine as “the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement.” Sachs in that piece recounted the neocon track record of promoting disastrous military adventures that have resulted in diminishing U.S. influence abroad and, in the case of Ukraine, risking a wider European war. Sachs concluded that “[i]nstead of risking this disaster, the real solution is to end the neocon fantasies of the past 30 years and for Ukraine and Russia to return to the negotiating table, with NATO committing to end its commitment to the eastward enlargement to Ukraine and Russia in return for a viable peace that respects and protects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

 

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/09/01/last_gasp_of_the_neoconservatives_977053.html

Edited September 5, 2023 by Dashinka

[Boiler 45,735]

It would be very unusual for casualty figures to be releases during ongoing operations and obviously Ukraine has been very tight with their numbers, which are undoubtedly significant.

 

Russia has issued numbers which seemed very low, I think the other aspect is that Ukraine has no real choice, it can not disengage when Russia obviously can.

[Mike E 11,741]

4 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Ukraine and Russia to return to the negotiating table

What is there to negotiate?

[Mike E 11,741]

True or false: 6 weeks after Georgia and Ukraine applied to join NATO, and NATO said no, Russia invaded Georgia?

[Dashinka 24,639]

38 minutes ago, Mike E said:

What is there to negotiate?

An end to hostilities, maybe an agreement the West will not violate?  Heck, considering how corrupt both the Ukrainian and Russian governments are, maybe they can get together and decide how many oligarchs each country is allowed.  In the end the manipulations by the West will not be advantageous to either country.  It is already a stalemate with strategic offensive actions in localized locations, and sure this may bankrupt Russia, but even if that does, Russia is still loaded with massive amounts of natural resources they can exploit, and there are a lot of folks willing to buy them.

[Mike E 11,741]

25 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

An end to hostilities,

Russia invaded. It just needs to withdraw to the ussr era borders

 

 

25 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

 

maybe an agreement the West will not violate?

violate what?

25 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

 

Heck, considering how corrupt both the Ukrainian and Russian governments are, maybe they can get together and decide how many oligarchs each country is allowed.

Why should either country care how many oligarchs each have?

 

Should Canada and U.S. go to war over their oligarch counts?

 

The Edmonton Oilers are owned by an Canadian oligarch. I am quite angry about the fact that despite owning the best two players in the world, the Cup keeps going

to Walmart, American hedge fund, and  401k oligarchs. But I do not think we should go to war over that. 

25 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

 

  In the end the manipulations by the West will not be advantageous to either country.  It is already a stalemate with strategic offensive actions in localized locations, and sure this may bankrupt Russia, but even if that does, Russia is still loaded with massive amounts of natural resources they can exploit, and there are a lot of folks willing to buy them.

I am not understanding how Russia’s  natural resources   are a justification for it invading European countries. 

 

[Dashinka 24,639]

Just now, Mike E said:

Russia invaded. It just needs to withdraw to the ussr era borders

 

 

violate what?

Why should either country care how many oligarchs each have?

 

Should Canada and U.S. go to war over their oligarch counts?

 

The Edmonton Oilers are owned by an Canadian oligarch. I am quite angry about the fact that despite owning the best two players in the world, the Cup keeps going

to Walmart, American hedge fund, and  401k oligarchs. But I do not think we should go to war over that. 

I am not understanding how Russia’s  natural resources   are a justification for it invading European countries. 

 

I was trying to illustrate that anything is better than sending a lot of young men off to be killed over the whims of a couple of leaders.  There is no win-win here for either side.  Not really sure a bankrupt nuclear superpower is great for the world, and in the end, the West will renege on any promises it gave Ukraine.  Heck, the West already reneged on the promise made to Ukraine to get rid of their nuclear weapons.  Doing nothing in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea was not ensuring Ukraine security.  Simply sending weapons to Ukraine now does not guarantee their security.  

 

Btw, I did not say Russia's natural resources were a justification for the invasion.  I was referring to those as a way Russia can weather any financial storm like they are doing now.  With the massive programs of the West driving for more and more products requiring massive amounts of mining, and those same countries loathe to do that mining in their own backyards, it has to come from somewhere, and like the oil and LNG/CNG Europe is getting laundered through India, I suspect scarce raw materials will be treated similarly.

[Boiler 45,735]

Well it still seems to have majority support in Russia and until that changes we are where we are.

[Dashinka 24,639]

1 hour ago, Mike E said:

True or false: 6 weeks after Georgia and Ukraine applied to join NATO, and NATO said no, Russia invaded Georgia?

True.  True or false, didn't the West promise Russia that NATO would not expand after Russia agreed to German re-unification?

[Dashinka 24,639]

Hmm, seems the West is playing both sides still.

 

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/09/05/the-wests-reliance-on-russian-nuclear-fuel-funds-moscows-war-a82356

 

[TBoneTX 45,604]

12 hours ago, Dashinka said:

should have been split into at least two separate countries to help alleviate the tensions

Remember Pakistan and Bangladesh, and, most recently, Sudan and South Sudan.

A whole lot of previous European colonies (mostly in Africa) have illogical borders from cultural and religious standpoints.

[Boiler 45,735]

India and China

 

Even Japan and Russia

 

South America

 

North America

 

And so it goes on

[Mike E 11,741]

4 hours ago, Dashinka said:

True.  True or false, didn't the West promise Russia that NATO would not expand after Russia agreed to German re-unification?

I see nothing in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany that says NATO could not expand. 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO–Russia_relations says 

“The NATO-Russia Council (NRC) was created on 28 May 2002 during the 2002 NATO Summit in Rome”

By that date NATO had previously enlarged to include  Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. 

So if Russia still had its nose out of joint over NATO expansion into former Warsaw countries, signing up for the NRC surely did not indicate that. 
 

The current Russia / Ukraine war had its seeds in EU and Ukraine agreeing to free trade treaty which no doubt would have led to Ukraine joining the EU. Instead government of Ukraine reneged and its people protested, toppling government in favor of a pro EU regime. Russia then took Crimea, shot down a passenger jet, and invaded the rest of Ukraine.

 

Thus  Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine has less to do with Ukraine possibly being in NATO and more to do with Russia fearing the reduced economic influence it would have on Ukraine.
 

As a member of the EU, Ukraine was on a path to a GDP that would eclipse Russia. This embarrassment would ultimately force Putin from power.  
 

The State Department has surely mishandled Russian relations, and the U.S. and NATO invasion of Yugoslavia gave Russia  an excuse to have its feelings hurt. But Stalin tried repeatedly to assassinate Tito, so forgive me if I am not so moved by Russia’s concern over NATO aggression toward a Slavic country. 
 

If Yeltsin wasn’t a drunk, Russia might have turned out differently.